Thermal Ink-jet Coders Help Company Save 60%

The place? Essex, MD. The company? Tessemae’s All Natural salad dressing and condiment company. Founded by brothers Greg, Brian, and Matt Vetter, the company launched in 2009. The company’s products are sold in many retail stores across the country.

You might wonder where we might be going with this information. Certainly doesn’t look like an opener for thermal printers. We insist though, it definitely is!

The story begins with Tessemae’s bottle labels and sachets. Until recently, they used thermal transfer overcoat equipment to code their “Best by Date” codes. In early 2015, things changed. The Veritiv Corporation introduced Tessemae to thermal ink-jet printing. Thermal printing is a cost-effective, low maintenance alternative to the coding method that had been in place since the company’s inception. Once Tessemae realized that thermal printers offered a cost-effective option, they implemented this technology for both their packaging lines.

Tessemae installed Veritiv-supplied iJet for its bottle filling line. iJet is an independently operating thermal ink-jet print head from AT Information Products. What’s amazing is that the thermal printer prints Best By Dates at speeds of up to 40 per minute on high-gloss labels. They are then applied to Tessemae’s salad dressing bottles.

We get it – the printer is amazingly fast… does it, however, save on costs?

“The vf/f/s pouch line is now equipped with ATIP’s X4Jet print controller with two single ATIP Autoprint print heads that print on four pouches simultaneously. Pouches measure 3 x 5.5 in. and are constructed of 48-ga PET/four-color print/adhesive/0.025-mil EVOH LLDPE. Using solvent-based ink, the print heads add Best By codes to the preprinted sachet rollstock at 160/min.”

Both the iJet and X4Jet are programmed using ATIP’s iDesign software for label formats and database connections.

Additionally, Tessemae has realized a 60 percent savings on bottle label coding. Matt Vetter, one of the key founders of Tessemae has noted that this printing has increased the company’s uptime, and improved quality of the printing on its labels and sachets.

Matt Vetter owes it all to the paradigm shift in technology. Better printing and greater savings are definitely the key features of thermal printers.